Tenants angry after apartment building orders them to "friend" it on Facebook

There's something forced about Facebook relationships. If someone "friends" you, you feel duty-bound to reciprocate. Even if that person is, well, entirely unknown to you.

That forced feeling can go too far.

As KSL-TV reports, residents of an apartment building in Salt Lake City, Utah, say they found a curious piece of paper stuck to their doors.

Headlined "Facebook Addendum," it had fascinating stipulations.

It insisted that tenants had five days to "friend" the City Park Apartments on Facebook or they'd be in breach of their lease. The fact that they'd already signed their lease perhaps months previously didn't seem to matter to the owners.

Oh, and then there was the part about releasing the building owners to post pictures of the tenants or their visitors to, yes, the building's Facebook page.

You will also be traumatized into delirium when I tell you that another stipulation was that the tenants don't post anything negative on social media. This seems a strangely unbalanced "friendship."

One tenant, Jason Ring, told KSL: "I don't want to be forced to be someone's friend and be threatened to break my lease because of that."

Ring believes it's a violation of his privacy. It's hard not to sympathize. What right does an apartment complex have to force you to use a social network? What if you don't even have a Facebook account? Do you try to negotiate and say you'll give them a nice Yelp review?

Perhaps the owners thought this was reasonable, modern behavior. The building's managers, Apartment Management Consultants, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Neither did Facebook, when asked whether the apartment building's actions might be against its terms of service.

Currently, the building enjoys a mere 1.1-star rating on its Facebook page. It also enjoys comments that are less than flattering.

For example, this from Tom Native: "Dropping in and giving you one star because you act like a bunch of Nazi's [sic] with the FB policy you are forcing down residents throats. Do you really think forcing people to like you is the way to go? I am guessing as this goes viral, you will be getting more bad reviews than you could have gotten good reviews."

I am guessing that Native might have a better feel for the people's ideas of friendship than do the building's owners.

This article originally appeared on CNET.com.